Thank you both for taking the time to reply . I agree it’s really worrying and saddens me that autism is being painted as being rooted in trauma that can even be ‘ transgenerational ‘ . I feel this can increase feelings of guilt for parents and infers counselling around trauma can theoretically ‘ cure’ children by bringing them out of an ‘ autistic state / autistic retreat ‘ ( which is how the counselling service refers to children diagnosed with autism ) . The counsellor has told the leadership team that for any child with autism or interaction needs its essential that psychodynamic enquiry should be the starting point and for parents to also receive counselling to explore their own trauma. The counsellor continually undermined my therapy goals and has since I raised concerns , emailed me claiming that a none Verbal child who has not yet consolidated joint attention , hd been ‘ emerging from her autistic retreat’ as a result of counselling ‘ but that SALT targets around intensive interaction and the use of visual support meant there “ continues to be much investment in maintaining R in an infantilised state. “ When I asked for specific articles, I have instead been given a reference to a study by parsons et al (2017) and was told that” there are, actually, over 4,000 peer-reviewed papers, either focused upon autism or making reference to autistic states, published between 1950-2022. A search on Google Scholar, affording a snapshot into disciplinary contribution to the subject, deploying the terms, “Psychoanalysis Autism” yields 32,700 publications (compared to “SALT Autism”, 11,000).” So appears to be suggesting paychoanalysis has a more relevant role to play. Luckily the leadership team are supportive of my communication targets, given I have provided a clear evidence basis for all . I am just genuinely curious as to if this is a ‘rogue’ approach that this one person has adopted or a whole area of evidenced based practice that has passed me by . anyway … rant over .. thanks again for taking the time to reply .
